DIY - Do It Yourself, Home Repair

Use A Pool Leveller To Keep Your In-Ground Pool Full This Year: Fill-O-Matic Brand Worked Great For Me

We have an in-ground pool that was built in the 1970s. Every year when I open it, I wonder what all will be wrong. Starting some years ago we developed a small leak – most likely in a line somewhere. Between that and evaporation, it used to be a challenge to keep the water level correct. This was a big deal because if the water dropped below the skimmer then the pump would run dry and nothing got filtered. Notice how I put that in past tense? It’s not a problem any longer.

In October 2021, I bought a Fill-O-Matic automatic pool leveller. The brand sounds like a gimmick but it really works – I bought mine based on a referral actually but ran out of time before the season ended. However, right at the start of the 2022 pool season in Michigan I installed it and it couldn’t be more simple – you basically adjust the height to where you want the water, connect a host, turn on the water and away it goes.

It’s basically a float valve that moves up and down. When water is added, it moves up and eventually closes the valve. When it goes down, it reaches a point where it opens the valve and it does it in degrees – if the float goes down a bit, the valve only lets a little bit of water in.

The red plastic is the float. When it goes down, the valve gradually opens and water comes in as you can see. When the float goes up, the valve gradually closes.
This is the back of the unit – when you loosen the black finger nuts shown, you can then slide the float up and down and thus control your water level.

What I found was that the unit ran almost constantly but the amount of water it was adding in was small. It’s a very simple well made quality mechanical device and that’s good – that also means it will be reliable.

Summary

I ran it all of 2022 without a problem, rinsed it off before storing it and absolutely plan on using it this year again. By the way, it’s made in the USA and I actually corresponded with the inventor over some question I had – I recall he answered quickly and it addressed whatever it was that I asked. When I searched on Amazon for the product, I notice there are cheap import knock-offs. Be sure to the original Fill-O-Matic.

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